


Outside Context Solution

by warisaracket



Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Touhou Project
Genre: F/F, first person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-05 18:58:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11019549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warisaracket/pseuds/warisaracket
Summary: Immortality means that "taking a break" can involve centuries, millennia, new identities, and daring prison breaks.





	Outside Context Solution

I can say that I am a connoisseur of prisons. From the time I was fifteen and in a band that got a little politically suspect with the lyrics (three days in the district lock-up) to the week I spent in the tender hands of the Imperial Security Bureau, I've been through most prisons you can expect to walk out of eventually, and a few that you don't. This one was about average as far as comfort goes. Actual bathing and toilet facilities, which you'd think would be de rigeur for any civilized society, and two people to a cell. It's nice to have some company.

Roomie was fairly short, with a mass of white hair tied up in a ponytail, wearing red and white. She looked to be maybe five or six years younger than me, except in the eyes. Her looks weren't exactly to my taste (I prefer darker and taller, though I can take or leave the handsome part) and she hadn't made eyes towards me, either. So much for that kid's fantasy, huh? 

"I never asked. What are you in here for?" Roomie broke off from the meditation she'd been engaging in more-or-less constantly since I'd arrived.

"That's quite a question to ask after five days in the same cell," I said, and continued, "Let's see... illegal possession of a Class 3 weapon, unregistered possession of multiple Class 2 weapons, conspiracy to trespass into a private databank, aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, and resisting interrogation. You?"

She chuckled. "All that, from a kid like you. Rebel, I take it?" She leaned back a bit. "Suspicion of smuggling's all they've got, but unfortunately I think they weren't convinced by my IDs." 

Then it clicked. White and red, a dossier I'd gone over a few times after I'd kicked everyone's asses at games and they wouldn't play with me anymore, youthful appearance... "Are you...?" And I leaned forward and traced P L A T O K E E F on my bed, where the security cameras couldn't see it.

"Yeah. I suppose so."

I leaned back a little. "Huh." 

"They still making those gutter holodramas about me? I'm afraid I haven't been keeping up." Platt had an expression of extreme interest on her face. 

I shrugged. "I guess? I never paid much attention either."

"Buncha idiots." Platt returned to meditating. 

I went back over the dossier. Platt O'Keefe, somewhat successful independent trader, smuggler, and part-time information broker. Known for having about a dozen ships shot out under her and for writing shadowfeed articles reviewing spaceports and providing helpful assistance to wannabe smugglers. Noted as "of indeterminate age", "excellent shot", "Alliance-friendly", and "Surprisingly familiar with High Klatooinian artistic motifs", this last a comment by Hextrophon. And that was about it. Nothing about her being highly religious or a Jedi wannabe or a Sorceress of Tund. 

"I have a lot of questions," I said after a while.

"Someday you may know me well enough to get answers," she said, without opening her eyes.

"First one: you any good at Vector?"

Platt opened one eye. "Hmm," she said.

She was good at Vector, even playing it with a blank table as a board and with bits of flimsy for pieces. We ended up at 4-5 for her, by the time of mutual boredom. That cleared out day 5 and day 6. 

Midway through game 7, I asked, "Aren't you worried they'll execute you?"

"Not really, no," she said as she captured one of my pieces.

One of the common tricks of imprisoners the Galaxy over is to run their schedules just off-target from local time and spacer time, to keep you disoriented and groggy, especially if they're planning on pulling you for interrogation or execution. Day Seven officially began at 4:30 local time, 5:25 spacer time (I figured this out later- I'm no cyborg!), and I woke up to Platt still meditating, barely having moved from when I'd nodded off.

"Don't you ever sleep?" I asked her. 

"Sometimes."

I grunted. "What are you meditating for, anyways?"

"Galactic peace and harmony."

That wasn't even worth a grunt. "Think they'll be bringing breakfast anytime soon?"

Platt opened her mouth and then there came a loud rumble, bass enough to shake into our bones. Shortly after it was followed by an explosion, the sound of blasters, and a few more explosions. Now we could hear guards yelling and the modulated voices of stormtroopers, followed by a lot more blasterfire. Then there was nothing but the sound of footsteps coming down the hall towards us.

I tried to remain calm, and focused on Platt. To my surprise, she looked mildly annoyed. 

The door hissed open and in the open doorway stood a woman who I cannot do justice in describing. Her hair was as dark as space, her eyes were a rich dark red-brown like a sea of wine, her smile glittered like coruscas, and even the blaster in her hand felt like an ornament. 

"I really don't like the way you're doing your hair nowadays," she said. 

Platt's expression softened. "I kept getting it caught in things. Would you rather I cut it all off?"

The woman laughed, and her laughter might have been the origin of all laughter. "Mokou, you'd never be able to manage short hair. You need to get it cut regularly for that."

Mokou? Oh, so "Platt O'Keefe" was an alias itself. Not surprising, I guess. 

Platt/Mokou sneered. "So, Kaguya, felt the need to play the dashing hero and rescue the fair maiden?"

Kaguya laughed again as she stepped all the way into the cell. "You, a fair maiden? I felt that this would be a nice way to reunite-" she looked at me for a moment, and then continued, "do _that_ for a couple times, then catch up, see what we wanna do for the next while."

"I _know_ what sex is," I found myself saying involuntarily. They both ignored me. 

"Well, I have to admit this would be a good place to cut loose, if there weren't all these other prisoners here," Platt/Mokou said, a warm smile forming on her face.

Kaguya said, "Oh, I didn't come alone. I believe Inaba is currently-"

Another woman appeared in the door of the cell. She was taller than either Platt/Mokou or Kaguya by quite a bit, and looked like a Coachellan had somehow, in defiance of conventional biology, had a child with a standard human. Which is to say, she had the ears of a rabbit. She was carrying a weapon that was also a hybrid, this time between a disruptor and a heavy repeater. It had a pair of rabbit ears also. 

"Oh there you are, Inaba. Get them all out alright?" Kaguya had sat on the bed and was currently absently playing with Platt/Mokou's hand. On the one hand, it was good to know that I would definitely have struck out, but on the other hand, the whole situation was absurd. Two people singlehandedly busting into a detention center, shooting their way through the guards, and liberating everyone?

Inaba replied, "Yes, I've cleared out the last detention block. There's a cargo airspeeder I disabled the transponder on that I pointed them to. We should go, princess. There's bound to be reinforcements incoming once they miss a status report or something, and Tewi can't hold off fighters forever."

Kaguya looked directly at me. "Why don't we take her with us, Mokou? She's got that look in her eyes, the one that witch had. A born troublemaker, like us." She hugged Platt/Mokou, who coughed a bit. 

"Do I get a say in this?" I admit, that was petulant. Not that anyone seemed to mind. Inaba had a calculatedly professional look on her face, Platt/Mokou and Kaguya were grinning like idiots, and hell, why was I feeling upset that I was getting a free prison break? Was I really so wedded to the idea that imprisonment was a natural state of affairs if you did something disruptive? What if I- 

I realized that while I was being philosophical I had been picked up and slung in a reverse rescuer's carry over Inaba's shoulder. We were walking through the halls of the prison. "Finally back with us?" Inaba asked. She smirked. "No, you normally don't get a say in things when the princess decides what she wants to do. I suggest getting used to it."

A warden was struggling to pull himself up to a desk with a commlink on it, presumably a guard station. Kaguya shot him offhandedly. 

"Where's Miss Lunar Sage, anyhow?" Platt/Mokou asked. 

"She's currently having a ball working as an outlaw pharmacist for species that aren't getting proper medical care," Inaba said. "Which reminds me, we do need to find a source for Trimizine on our way back, princess." 

"Oh, sure, we'll stop off at Svivren or somewhere." Kaguya spun and shot a stormtrooper that, presumably, had been faking death. 

"Why the, uh," I began to ask Inaba, as best I could when looking up at someone's face while upside-down. She said, "There's facets to it. The least sympathetic aspect is that Kaguya is a free spirit and detests anyone who would force her to remain repressed." 

Kaguya laughed. "Oh, Inaba, even when you try to slander me you compliment me." 

Mokou grunted. "Or she's just a bloodthirsty maniac like me."

Kaguya said, "Well, you're the one who keeps coming back to this bloodthirsty maniac."

Inaba muttered to me, "This is actually the best it gets with them. They're usually worse." She shifted me a bit. "Sorry about carrying you, but all of us can run faster and for longer than standard humans, so..." 

We made it out of the cellblock and into the central courtyard. A starship hovered over it, and the smoldering ruins of the comms tower indicated what the rumble earlier had been. The starship was not of a familiar model, though the fine lines suggested a luxury yard along the lines of Pantolomin. Of course, the missile launchers and the quartet of cannon bristling like a catfish's whiskers from the bridge weren't exactly yacht features... I noted the name painted on the side- "Emissary of Eternity"- as it settled down to landing.

Inaba set me down and pulled me toward the ship, which had dropped the landing ramp. We walked up more-or-less at a leisurely pace, as Kaguya was doing so and was in the lead. We were met at the top of the ramp by another alien of the same species as Inaba, though much shorter and with dark hair instead of pink, who I assumed must be Tewi. She said, "We're ready to take off. I suggest you find a seat for that girl you picked up." She winked at me, and Inaba made a huffy sound. 

There was a small lounge right behind the bridge where we all buckled in. The seats were extremely soft and I just sat back and luxuriated in the feel of it as we leaped from the planet and into the depths of hyperspace. 

Tewi came back in from the bridge with a 'droid behind. The 'droid was modeled after a human woman, down to "hair" molded on her head, though the bright green color was not a common human one. She looked at me.

"Greetings. I am RU-K20. Might I ask your name?" 

My stomach growled loudly as I opened my mouth.

"Ah, they probably had you on prison food, and we sprung you without any breakfast! What terrible hosts you three are!" Tewi said, her eyes twinkling. She bustled off into the next room. 

"I go by Eirene," I said. 

Everyone else laughed for a moment, and I flushed.

"Oh, it's not you," Kaguya said, "It's coincidence we're laughing at." 

Well. Coincidence.

I turned to Inaba, "So, what's your story, Ms. Inaba?"

"Call me Reisen, please. Actually, we might as well lay all our stories out together, since they're fairly intertwined."

"Not mine," RU-K20 said. "My story is simple and unrelated to any of you hooligans. I was manufactured, set to work as a cleaner, found I was unable to perform such tasks to specifications, and I've been inconsolable ever since as I bounce around between jobs." There was a brief metallic shriek and an amber tear dripped from one eye. 

Tewi reentered with food I didn't recognize but which smelled delicious. "Oh, you're telling your stories, huh? Well, I'd better stick around and correct your mistakes, misinterpretations, and so on," she said, laying a plate in front of me. 

Kaguya said, "The story begins, I suppose, with a planet, which had one moon. On that planet-"

I listened intently. The ship swam through hyperspace.

**Author's Note:**

> So back in the days of the old-old Star Wars RPG, one of the iconic characters they used had a profile where it mentioned she wore red and white, had long white hair tied with red ribbons, and according to her "I look about twenty, so let's say I'm in my twenties." 
> 
> I decided to jump to conclusions, and also to model this story on Roger Zelazny's "The Naked Matador", a retelling of Perseus and Medusa told by a guy Medusa picks up in a bar. 
> 
> Mokou/Kaguya is an oddly sweet relationship, even strictly canonically, for being one between two people who kill each other on a regular basis.
> 
> Eirene's name is not just a bad joke, but also a reference to Joanna Russ's novel _The Two of Them_.
> 
> I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine how exactly this state of affairs came about.
> 
> "Coachellans" are, if you are as much of a Star Wars nerd as me, officially called "Lepis" but they're from the planet Coachella Prime so whatever. Music festival puns (based on lines from old Bugs Bunny cartoons) are better than Latin puns.


End file.
